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This chapter provides an overview of the growing body of evidence that now documents the positive impact of infrastructure for digital connectivity, as policymakers seek to harness its potential to drive economic development and improve standards of living. However, significant challenges continue to impede the delivery of comprehensive digital connectivity across all social groups and geographical contexts. As ever greater technological advances continue to shape our everyday lives, policymakers must ensure that the existing social and economic digital divide is not exacerbated. This chapter defines infrastructure for digital connectivity, as well as key concepts and terms. This is followed by a review of the economic impact of infrastructure for digital connectivity, most notably broadband, and a discussion of free and municipal Wi-Fi and rural digital hubs. The chapter concludes with an overview of how digital connectivity is measured in international frameworks and composite indices for measuring digital society and the digital economy.

Digital technologies are transforming all aspects of society. While so-called smart city technologies are widely cited as solutions for a wide range of socio-economic challenges, there is a relative paucity of research and discussion on the role and impact of ICTs in towns. The term ‘digital town’ concerns a physical place, the people who interact with that place, information and communication technologies, and the relationship between them. This chapter introduces key concepts and terms in digital society policy and literature. Based on a review of literature and digital town initiatives and projects, ten rationales for adopting digital technologies in towns are identified and discussed and a working definition of a digital town is proposed. The chapter concludes with a discussion of commonly cited frameworks and composite indices for measuring digital society and the digital economy and the need for a discrete measurement framework for digital towns is justified.

Digital public services refer to the provision of public services using digital technologies wherein the interaction with a public sector organisation is mediated by an IT system. Citizens are constantly demanding higher transparency, efficiency and responsiveness from public organisations. The increasing adoption of digital technologies constitutes a key element of governments’ response to such demands and has the potential to generate substantial benefits for the overall economy both at a local and national level. This chapter defines digital public services, discusses the existing challenges for the implementation of these services in the rural context, and summarises existing frameworks for assessing the adoption and use of e-Government, e-Health technologies, and open data.

The continued proliferation of information technology in all aspects of our lives fosters benefits but also generates risks to individuals’ privacy. In emerging contexts, such as government surveillance technologies, there is a dearth of research investigating the positive and negative drivers of citizens’ acceptance. This is an important gap given the importance of citizen acceptance to the success of these technologies and the need to balance potentially wide-reaching benefits with any dilution of citizen privacy. We conduct a longitudinal examination of the competing influences of positive beliefs and privacy concerns on citizens’ acceptance of a COVID-19 national contact tracing mobile application among 405 Irish citizens. Combining privacy calculus theory with social exchange theory, we find that citizens’ initial acceptance is shaped by their perceptions of health benefits and social influence, with reciprocity exhibiting a sustained influence on acceptance over time and privacy concerns demonstrating a negative, albeit weak influence on willingness to rely on the application. The study offers important empirical and theoretical implications for the privacy literature in the government surveillance, location-based services, and mobile health application contexts, as well as practical implications for governments and developers introducing applications that rely on mass acceptance and reciprocal information disclosure.

Blockchain can potentially disrupt business processes across many industries. Despite substantial hype, blockchain adoption still remains quite low. Research suggests that the success and adoption of a new technology depends on whether it is deemed legitimate by key stakeholders. This is extremely important in the context of blockchain given the controversial reputation that some derivative innovations, such as Bitcoin, have gained over time. This chapter explores and compares how four types of business actors which play a prominent role in the blockchain ecosystem—the media, IT, financial services and consulting firms—attempted to build legitimacy around blockchain and Bitcoin on Twitter. Findings suggest that the messaging strategies employed by firms for blockchain and Bitcoin differ. While no dominant firm-level messaging strategies to build legitimacy around Bitcoin emerge, firms primarily employ three micro-level legitimation strategies to build legitimacy around blockchain. More specifically, communication strategies around blockchain focus on publishing the involvement of influential actors (pragmatic legitimacy), highlighting blockchain ongoing developments and associated market responses (cognitive legitimacy), and presenting technological advancements directly or indirectly related to blockchain (cognitive legitimacy). The findings illustrate how the key actors engage in the blockchain and Bitcoin legitimation discourse to help interpret this complex innovation and mobilise the market to adopt.

e16143 Background: There is no standard chemotherapy available for previously treated, advanced (unresectable and/or metastatic) biliary tract cancer (BTC). This systematic literature review and meta-analysis were conducted to assess clinical outcomes of chemotherapies in this patient population. Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted through mid-2021 to identify relevant studies using Embase, MEDLINE, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled trials (January 1, 2000–July 6, 2021) with additional searches of recent ASCO and ESMO conferences. Eligible study designs included randomized controlled trials, controlled clinical trials, and non-randomized clinical trials in patients (≥18 years age, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance score 0 or 1) previously treated for advanced BTC and who had progressed on prior treatment (i.e., ≥2L). The outcomes of interest were objective response rate (ORR), progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS). A meta-analysis among chemotherapies was performed to obtain a pooled estimate of the efficacy of standard treatments in BTC. The ORR meta-analysis was performed using the Freeman-Tukey double arcsine transformation. For time-to-event outcomes, published Kaplan-Meier curves for OS and PFS were digitized to create pseudo- individual patient data. A meta-analysis of the resulting pooled survival curves for OS and PFS were conducted following the methodology of Combescure et al. (2014). Results: In total, 39 unique studies were identified. Seventeen studies representing 22 unique therapy arms evaluating chemotherapies among 903 patients were included in the meta-analysis for ORR. The random effects pooled estimate for ORR was 6.6% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 4.1-9.7%). Median PFS (12 studies; 16 survival curves) was 3.1 months (95% CI: 2.5-3.8) with PFS rates at 6 and 12 months of 26.7% (95% CI: 19.8-36%) and 6.9% (95% CI: 4.1-11.7%), respectively. Median OS (15 studies; 19 survival curves) was 6.8 months (95% CI: 5.9-7.5) with OS rates at 6, 12, and 24 months of 55.3% (95% CI: 49.9-61.3%), 24.6% (95% CI: 20.0-30.2%), and 2.0% (95% CI: 1.1-3.8%), respectively. Conclusions: The limited efficacy of clinical outcomes for chemotherapies used in the treatment of advanced BTC suggest an opportunity to explore the potential clinical benefits of newer treatments (e.g., immunotherapies).

Trust is regularly cited as one the main barriers for increased adoption of cloud computing, however conceptualisations of trust in cloud computing literature can be simplistic. This chapter briefly introduces the trust literature including definitions and antecedents of trust. Following an overview of cloud computing, we discuss some of the cited barriers to trust in cloud computing, and proposed mechanisms for building trust in the cloud. We present a high-level framework for exploring assurance (trust building) and accountability (trust repair) in the cloud and call for a more integrated multi-stakeholder approach to trust research in this multi-faceted context.

The recent increase in highly publicised cloud breaches, coupled with issues surrounding transparency and control in the cloud, highlights the importance of understanding and addressing privacy in this context. The extant cloud privacy literature has a tendency to focus on technical solutions to address security and privacy together, but a small emerging body of literature acknowledges the importance of consumers’ privacy perceptions in the context of cloud computing. Given the breadth of cloud applications and the situational nature of privacy, it is imperative to unpack the role of privacy in this complex domain. This chapter leverages the broader privacy literature in the Information Systems field to identify potential measures to enhance consumer privacy in the cloud context and highlights a number of paths for research to further our knowledge of consumer privacy perceptions in the various cloud contexts.

Aim Though patient engagement in clinical research is growing, recent reports suggest few clinical trials report on such activities. To address this gap, we describe our approach to patient engagement in the development of a clinical trial protocol to assess a new immunotherapy for blood cancer (chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, CAR-T cell therapy). Methods Our team developed a clinical trial protocol by working with patient partners from inception. Two patient partners with lived blood cancer experience were identified through referrals from our team’s professional network and patient organization contacts. Our patient partners were onboarded to the team and engaged in several studies conducted to develop the clinical trial protocol, including a systematic review of the existing literature on the therapy, patient interviews and a survey to obtain perspectives on barriers and enablers to participating in the trial, an early economic analysis, and a retrospective cohort study. Results Engaging patient partners enhanced our research in ways that would not have otherwise occurred. By selecting patient important outcomes for data collection, our partners helped flag that quality of life and health utility measures have not been reported in previous CAR-T cell therapy trials for blood cancer. Our partners also co-developed a non-technical summary of the systematic review that summarized results in an accessible manner. Our patient partners reviewed interview and survey questions, to improve the language and appropriateness; provided recruitment suggestions; and provided a patient perspective on the results, thereby confirming the importance of findings. Input was also obtained on costs for the early economic analysis. Our patient partners identified costs that may be a burden to both patients and caregivers during a trial and helped to confirm that the overall structure of the economic model reflected the patient care pathway. Our patient partners also shared their diagnosis and treatment stories, which helped to provide the research team with insight into this experience. Conclusions Contributions by our patient partners were invaluable to each component study, as well as the overall development of the trial protocol. We plan to use this approach in the future in order to meaningfully engage patients in the development of other clinical trials; we also hope that by reporting our methods this will help other research teams to do the same. Trial registration Affiliated with the development of NCT03765177.

Aim: Though patient engagement in clinical research is growing, recent reports suggest few clinical trials report on such activities. To address this gap, we describe our approach to patient engagement in the development of a clinical trial protocol for a new immunotherapy for blood cancer (chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, CAR-T cell therapy). Methods: Our team developed a clinical trial protocol by working with patient partners from inception. Two patient partners with lived blood cancer experience were identified through referrals from our team’s professional network and patient organization contacts. Our patient partners were onboarded to the team and engaged in several studies conducted to develop the clinical trial protocol, including a systematic review of the existing literature on the therapy, patient interviews and a survey to obtain perspectives on barriers and enablers to participating in the trial, an early economic analysis, and a retrospective cohort study. Results: Engaging patient partners enhanced our research in ways that would not have otherwise occurred. By selecting patient important outcomes for data collection, our partners helped flag that quality of life and health utility measures have not been reported in previous CAR-T cell therapy trials for blood cancer. Our partners also co-developed a non-technical summary of the systematic review that summarized results in an accessible manner. Our patient partners reviewed interview and survey questions, to improve the language and appropriateness; provided recruitment suggestions; and provided a patient perspective on the results, thereby confirming the importance of findings. Input was also obtained on costs for the early economic analysis. Our patient partners identified costs that may be a burden to both patients and caregivers during a trial and helped to confirm that the overall structure of the economic model reflected the patient care pathway. Our patient partners also shared their diagnosis and treatment stories, which helped to provide the research team with insight into this experience.Conclusions: Contributions by our patient partners were invaluable to each component study, as well as the overall development of the trial protocol. We plan to use this approach in the future, to meaningfully engage patients in the development of other clinical trials; we also hope that by reporting our methods this will help other research teams to do the same. Trial Registration: Affiliated with the development of NCT03765177

The Internet of Things (IoT) and the various applications it encompasses offer great potential for personalisation and convenience in all aspects of individuals’ lives from healthcare to transport and smart homes. However, IoT devices collect and share large volumes of personal data leading to concerns for the security and privacy of the data. While computer science research has explored technical solutions to security issues, it is important to explore privacy from the perspective of consumers. To foster a sense of privacy and trust among consumers, IoT service providers must communicate with consumers regarding their data practices in a transparent manner. To do this, we propose that IoT service providers refine adopt transparent privacy disclosure approaches. We present a framework for testing the effectiveness of privacy disclosures in building consumers’ perceptions of privacy and trust and empowering consumers to adopt IoT devices whilst retaining some level of privacy. We illustrate this framework with reference to a privacy label approach.

Much of the research on measuring the business value of cloud computing examines cloud computing from the perspective of a centralised commodity-based aggregated conceptualisation of cloud computing, largely based on the NIST reference architecture. Advances in new processor architectures and virtualisation combined with the rise of the Internet of Things are not only changing cloud computing but introducing new computing paradigms from the cloud to the edge. These new paradigms present both opportunities and challenges, not least managing complexity several orders of magnitude greater than today. Yet, academic research on measuring the business value of cloud computing is lagging practice and remains far removed from these innovations. New research is required that explores the relationship between investments in new cloud computing paradigms and business value, and the measurement thereof. This chapter explores a selection of these new paradigms, which may provide fruitful research pathways in the future.

Background ‘Patient engagement’ involves meaningful collaboration between researchers and ‘patient partners’ to co-create research. It helps ensure that research being conducted is relevant to its ultimate end-users. Although patient engagement within clinical research has been well documented, the prevalence and effects of patient engagement in translational preclinical laboratory research remain unclear. The aim of this scoping review is to present current patient engagement activities reported in preclinical laboratory research. Methods MEDLINE, Embase, and grey literature were systematically searched from inception to April 2021. Studies that described or investigated patient engagement in preclinical laboratory research were included. Patient engagement activities where patients (i.e. patients, family members, caregivers or community members) provided input, or consultation on at least one element of the research process were eligible for inclusion. Study characteristics and outcomes were extracted and organized thematically. Findings 32 reports were included (30 primary studies, 1 narrative review, and 1 researcher guide). Most studies engaged patients at the education or priority setting stages (n=26). The most frequently reported benefit of patient engagement was ‘providing a mutual learning opportunity’. Reported barriers to patient engagement reflected concerns around ‘differences in knowledge and research experience’ and how this may challenge communication and limit meaningful collaboration. Interpretation Patient engagement is feasible and beneficial for preclinical laboratory research. Future work should focus on assessing the impacts of patient engagement in this area of research. Funding None.

The lack of transparency surrounding cloud service provision makes it difficult for consumers to make knowledge based purchasing decisions. As a result, consumer trust has become a major impediment to cloud computing adoption. Cloud Trust Labels represent a means of communicating relevant service and security information to potential customers on the cloud service provided, thereby facilitating informed decision making. This research investigates the potential of a Cloud Trust Label system to overcome the trust barrier. Specifically, it examines the impact of a Cloud Trust Label on consumer perceptions of a service and cloud service provider trustworthiness and trust in the cloud service and cloud service provider. An experimental study was carried out with a sample of 227 business decision makers with data collected before exposure to the label to examine initial perceptions and after exposure to the label to examine any change in perceptions and attitudes. As hypothesised, the results suggest that Cloud Trust Labels that contain positive information can have a positive impact on trust and trustworthiness while Cloud Trust Labels that contain negative information have a negative impact. The practical implications of this new method of communicating trustworthiness online are discussed and recommendations are made for future research.

Poor reporting quality may contribute to irreproducibility of results and failed 'bench-to-bedside' translation. Consequently, guidelines have been developed to improve the complete and transparent reporting of in vivo preclinical studies. To examine the impact of such guidelines on core methodological and analytical reporting items in the preclinical anesthesiology literature, we sampled a cohort of studies. Preclinical in vivo studies published in Anesthesiology, Anesthesia & Analgesia, Anaesthesia, and the British Journal of Anaesthesia (2008-2009, 2014-2016) were identified. Data was extracted independently and in duplicate. Reporting completeness was assessed using the National Institutes of Health Principles and Guidelines for Reporting Preclinical Research. Risk ratios were used for comparative analyses. Of 7615 screened articles, 604 met our inclusion criteria and included experiments reporting on 52 490 animals. The most common topic of investigation was pain and analgesia (30%), rodents were most frequently used (77%), and studies were most commonly conducted in the United States (36%). Use of preclinical reporting guidelines was listed in 10% of applicable articles. A minority of studies fully reported on replicates (0.3%), randomization (10%), blinding (12%), sample-size estimation (3%), and inclusion/exclusion criteria (5%). Statistics were well reported (81%). Comparative analysis demonstrated few differences in reporting rigor between journals, including those that endorsed reporting guidelines. Principal items of study design were infrequently reported, with few differences between journals. Methods to improve implementation and adherence to community-based reporting guidelines may be necessary to increase transparent and consistent reporting in the preclinical anesthesiology literature.

Within the complex context of high performance computing (HPC), the factors influencing technology adoption decisions remain largely unexplored. This study extends Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) and Human-Organization-Technology fit (HOT-fit) theories into an integrated model, to explore the impact of ten factors on cloud computing adoption decisions in the HPC context. The results suggest that adopters and non-adopters have different perceptions of the indirect benefits, adequacy of resources, top management support, and compatibility of adopting cloud computing for HPC. In addition, perceptions of the indirect benefits and HPC competences can be used to predict the cloud computing adoption decision for HPC. This is one of the first studies in the information systems (IS) literature exploring the factors impacting the cloud computing adoption decision in the important context of HPC. It integrates two influential technology adoption theories and enhances understanding of the key factors influencing organizationsâ cloud computing adoption decisions in this context.

Enterobacteriaceae strains producing the Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC) have disseminated worldwide, causing an urgent threat to public health. KPC-producing strains often exhibit low-level carbapenem resistance, which may be missed by automated clinical detection systems. In this study, eight Klebsiella pneumoniae strains with heterogeneous resistance to imipenem were used to elucidate the factors leading from imipenem susceptibility to high-level resistance as defined by clinical laboratory testing standards. Time-kill analysis with an inoculum as low as 3 × 10 6 CFU/ml and concentrations of imipenem 8- and 16-fold higher than the MIC resulted in the initial killing of 99.9% of the population. However, full recovery of the population occurred by 20 h of incubation in the same drug concentrations. Population profiles showed that recovery was mediated by a heteroresistant subpopulation at a frequency of 2 × 10 −7 to 3 × 10 −6 . Samples selected 2 h after exposure to imipenem were as susceptible as the unexposed parental strain and produced the major outer membrane porin OmpK36. However, between 4 to 8 h after exposure, OmpK36 became absent, and the imipenem MIC increased at least 32-fold. Individual colonies isolated from cultures after 20 h of exposure revealed both susceptible and resistant subpopulations. Once induced, however, the high-level imipenem resistance was maintained, and OmpK36 remained unexpressed even without continued carbapenem exposure. This study demonstrates the essential coordination between bla KPC and ompK36 expression mediating high-level imipenem resistance from a population of bacteria that initially exhibits a carbapenem-susceptibility phenotype.

The importance of demonstrating the value achieved from IT investments is long established in the Computer Science (CS) and Information Systems (IS) literature. However, emerging technologies such as the ever-changing complex area of cloud computing present new challenges and opportunities for demonstrating how IT investments lead to business value. This paper conducts a multidisciplinary systematic literature review drawing from CS, IS, and Business disciplines to understand the current evidence on the quantification of financial value from cloud computing investments. The study identified 53 articles, which were coded in an analytical framework across six themes (measurement type, costs, benefits, adoption type, actor and service model). Future research directions were presented for each theme. The review highlights the need for multi-disciplinary research which both explores and further develops the conceptualization of value in cloud computing research, and research which investigates how IT value manifests itself across the chain of service provision and in inter-organizational scenarios.

Bowen and Ostroff (2004, see also Ostroff & Bowen, 2016) initiated the concept of HRM system strength, referring to how organizations send or communicate their HR signals to employees. Since their ...

(1945). Seven-Player Soccer. The Journal of Health and Physical Education: Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 188-220.

(1945). Southern District Association News. The Journal of Health and Physical Education: Vol. 16, No. 6, pp. 342-344.

The DarkNet is a purposefully hidden collection of disconnected web sites that are not indexed by conventional or mainstream search engines, are not accessible by conventional means, and requires specialised software, specific knowledge, and authorisation to gain access. While typically associated with illegality and criminality, there are an increasing number of legitimate organizations active on the DarkNet. While explored widely in Computer Science, Humanities and Social Science, Engineering and Medicine, there is a paucity of research in the business and IS disciplines. The objective of this paper is to introduce the DarkNet and DarkNet Commerce, summarise extant business and IS research, albeit limited, and outline a proposed model to explore a previously unexplored relationship in the business and IS literature, namely the antecedents and consequences of the participation of legitimate organisations on the DarkNet.